Despite the departure of Fabio Paratici, Tottenham have continued to look at former or out-of-favour Juventus players in recent years, with the latest example being Radu Dragusin.
Paratici spent almost two years in North London from July 2021 to April of last year, playing a key role as the club’s sporting director before his forced resignation due to legal troubles in Italy following his involvement in the Prisma case.
The director, who previously spent 11 years with Juventus from July 2010 to May 2021, used his knowledge of Italy to his advantage during his time with Tottenham and his run at the club coincided with Antonio Conte’s spell in the dugout.
The first ex-Juventus player that Paratici brought to Tottenham was Cristian Romero, who arrived in North London in the summer of 2021 from Atalanta.
The Argentine defender had joined the Old Lady from Genoa for €31.5m in July 2019 but never made a first team appearance in Turin, spending time on loan with the Ligurian side and Atalanta before making a permanent move to the latter.
The following January, Paratici brought two more Juventus outcasts to Spurs – Dejan Kulusevski and Rodrigo Bentancur, two players who became regulars in North London before the latter suffered a cruciate ligament injury.
Paratici was ultimately forced to leave Tottenham last April, but that doesn’t mean his impact hasn’t dissipated at the club, seen with the club’s recent chase of Dragusin.
Juventus picked up the Romanian defender from Metropolitan Estudiantes when he was 16 and developed him in their youth system before sending him out on loan to Sampdoria, Salernitana and Genoa. He impressed enough in Liguria to earn a €5.5m move last summer.
Now Dragusin is only a step away from joining Tottenham in a deal worth around €25m plus €5m in add-ons, adding another player overlooked in Turin to the squad in North London.
In recent weeks, the club have also been linked with moves for other Bianconeri owned talents like Samuel Iling-Junior and Matias Soule, suggesting that this appreciation of the Old Lady’s peripheral figures won’t be coming to an end just yet.
Yes, but Paratici hasn’t ‘departed’ Spurs, he was only forced to leave his post as Director of Football.
He is still being employed by the club as a consultant and his fingers were undoubtedly all over this deal, as well as all Spurs’s transfer dealings last Summer.